


No Flash Photography, Please

by ShinobiCyrus



Category: Gravity Falls, ParaNorman (2012)
Genre: Crossover, Gen, I've decided ghosts find paranormal investigators as annoying (if not more so) than I do, Just to be safe, Meeting New (Alive) people is hard, Parapines, Teen Rating for scary ghost stuff, and a guy at school gives him weird vibes, in which Norman's family moves to California, it's hard and no one understands, well I am no presentable for company and you are being very rude, yes please barge into my house taking photos and demanding I show myself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-22
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:01:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29085039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShinobiCyrus/pseuds/ShinobiCyrus
Summary: “I love you Norman, but this is creepy even for you.”“Not helping, Neil.”“I am helping. I’m being super helpful. Friends don’t let friends be stalkers.”“I’m not-” Norman stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and looked around for any eavesdroppers, living or otherwise. He hissed defensively into his phone. “It’s not stalking. I’m investigating.”“It’s worse than I thought,” Neil said somberly. There was the familiar crinkle of a bag of chips in the background. “How many friends have you made since you guys moved in?”“I’ve made tons of new friends,” Norman said.“Corporeal friends, Norm.”“That’s so alive-ist.”
Relationships: Norman Babcock & Dipper Pines
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	No Flash Photography, Please

**Author's Note:**

> My friend Becca requested I write a fic where Norman and Dipper meet. I find it difficult to say No to her for much of anything.

“I love you Norman, but this is creepy even for you.”

“Not helping, Neil.”

“I am helping. I’m being super helpful. Friends don’t let friends be stalkers.”

“I’m not-” Norman stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and looked around for any eavesdroppers, living or otherwise. He hissed defensively into his phone. “It’s not stalking. I’m investigating.”

“It’s worse than I thought,” Neil said somberly. There was the familiar crinkle of a bag of chips in the background. “How many friends have you made since you guys moved in?”

“I’ve made tons of new friends,” Norman said. 

“ _Corporeal_ friends, Norm.”

“That’s so alive-ist.” 

Neil groaned. “I knew this would happen when you moved away. Dude, you gotta put yourself out there, y’know, like normal people do? You can’t bank on witch-curses and zombies to break the ice every time you go someplace new.”

His legs felt thin, itching and wrapped in too-tight denim. He started walking again without thinking, a brisk walk just shy of a jog. “This is serious, Neil, I’m not making this up! I’ve never gotten a feeling like this from a living person before.”

“…should I put Mitch and his boyfriend on speaker phone?”

Norman’s ears heated. “Not _that_ kind of feeling! It’s like…” His fingers carded through the stubborn spikes of his hair. “It’s like…whatever it is that ghosts are made out of but more…alive?”

“So he’s a…half ghost?”

“How can someone be _half_ of a ghost?”

“I dunno,” the speaker crackled as he pondered the implications by munching on his chips. Norman wasn’t sure if it was sad that he could recognize the sound of Neil’s favorite brand. He managed with a full mouth, “You’re the ghost expert, I’m just the loveable comic relief.” 

Norman growled impotent frustration. As much as his sister and his parents had gotten better about the spirit stuff since he was a kid, Neil was the only person he could go to when things got this weird. Just when he thought he finally had a handle on his life, one little trip in a moving truck and he’s more than just out a home and a best friend, he was completely out of his element. 

It was worse than going back to square one. At least back in Blithe Hollow people knew him, were used to him. Now he was just one overhead conversation with an unseen spirit away from being the crazy freak all over again. 

“Norm?” He must have been silent for too long. The pattern of one foot moving past the other over the sidewalk was hypnotic. 

“Sorry,” Norman shook his head. “Look, it’s hard to explain-”

“Norman.” Neil stopped him. “It’s okay. I get it. Weird kid setting off your ghoulie-sense, you gotta see where it takes you. I just wish I was there to back you up. Morally, I mean. And to give the monsters a bigger, slower target.”

“You do have my back, Neil.” Norman patted the keys in his jeans pocket. “I’ve got my lucky zombie-rabbit’s foot.”

“That was a fun garage sale.”

Norman chortled, and it was like the scraped out, hollow feeling weighing in his rib cage lightened, just a bit. As if things could actually work out fine.

He hadn’t even realized he stopped walking into he saw the house.

It was an old two-story wreck penned in by a waist high chain link fence. He touched the cold, rusted gate. “Sorry Neil, gonna have to call you back. Gotta go into a creepy abandoned house.”

“Sweet. Be sure to take pictures.”

“You know they hate that, Neil.”

“Oh. Right. Well, just don’t die. Or…if you do, be sure to haunt me. I miss you.”

“Miss you too, buddy. Bye.” He slipped the phone back into his pocket with the lucky zombie-rabbit’s foot Neil hadn’t been able to resist getting Norm for his fourteenth. Hands in his pockets, his keys jangled as he thumbed it anxiously. The Feeling had pulled him there, sure as a fishing hook tugging on the front of his brain.

“What are you here for?” Norman asked at the house. He wouldn’t worry about his sanity until the house answered back. The gate creaked predictably as he let himself in and made his way up the walk. Brown paint peeled off warped wood shingles curling like something mummified. What windows weren’t broken were poorly boarded like dark, peeking eyelids. Even the ‘For Sale’ sign staked into the dead lawn swayed on a rusty chain, listless in abandonment.

Norman gave it a four out of ten. Maybe a four and a half. Whatever ghost had embedded itself there was your basic ball of denial and angry possessiveness; familiar and kinda boring compared to whatever weird Presence that had drawn him there in the first place.

Rather than walk right through the front door, he walked around the house to the backyard, weed-clogged and littered with random debris. A car tire, a wagon half-sunk into the earth, the husk of a washing machine. The back door was locked only in the time it took for Norm to find two spare paperclips in his backpack. Thank you, English homework.

Sunshine illuminated the swirling cloud of dust riled by the door opening. Norm pulled his phone back out and turned on the flashlight app. It would eat the battery, but hopefully he wouldn’t be there for very long.

Great, now he jinxed himself.

He shut the door behind him and settled the phone’s beam over what used to be a kitchen, crooked cabinet doors and a yellowed fridge with its motor eerily silent. Calm, almost bored, he went down the hall and explored the rest of the dark house. The only danger was tripping on a tower of dog-eared magazines and maybe mold inhalation.

Definitely a four. How backwards was that? Ghosts and haunted houses: snore fest. High school and social situations: stammering and barely managed anxiety. Norman almost giggled to himself, right there in the middle of some couches covered in white sheets like bad Halloween costumes. Maybe he really was a freak.

It stopped being funny when someone screamed.

Norman swung around, his meager flashlight cutting through the darkness in piecemeal. No sign of movement. He closed his eyes and focused on controlling his breathing. Floorboards pounding from above. Norman bolted for the rickety stairs, long legs taking two at a time. He stopped at the top and listened for which side of the house the noise came from instead of calling out like an amateur.

A bodiless voice whispered softly on the goosebumps prickling the back of his neck. The clearer sound of footsteps, getting closer. Norm let his ears and the Feeling pull him left, down the hall, breaking out into a jog. It was hard to keep his phone’s light steady, but it was enough to make out faded wallpaper and a quick turn down the hall-

Slamming right into someone going the opposite way.

Having more bulk in his hoodie than the rest of his body, Norman couldn’t stop from landing hard on his back. Something pressed heavily on his chest. He stared wide-eyed at the dark show looming on him. It raised its arm and a flashlight- a real one- blinded him.

“Ah! Hey, watch it!”

“Sorry, sorry!” The flashlight was aimed away from his face, and Norman blinked away stars. Oh hey, it was him. The guy from his class with the pine-tree hat and the fuzzy soul patch. It had taken a week for Norman to sort out that the feeling of crushing unease that had been plaguing him wasn’t just being the new kid in a strange, unfamiliar high school. It was _him_ , walking around with the residue of…something on him. In him. An indelible mark on his…everything like an…infection? A contaminant? Kind of yes. But no. No…more like…a wound. Like something had scarred him, underneath the skin and sinew. 

It was like something had maimed this poor guy’s _soul._

“Where the hell did you come from?” The guy with the tree-hat demanded. 

He waved feebly underneath him. “Uh. Hi. I’m Norman. I think we’re in PE together. And Chemistry.”

“This isn’t Chemistry! What are you even doing- y’know what, nevermind. Don’t care. This is going to sound crazy, but you’re in a lot of danger right now-”

Oh crap, was that a camera around the guy’s neck? “Did you tick the ghost off?”

Tree-hat guy froze. “I- wait, what?”

“You tried to take a picture of it, didn’t you? You know they hate that, right?” Norman sighed. Stupid ghost chaser shows. “Could you get off of me, please? I need to fix this.”

“Fix what?”

“Whatever it is that _you_ did.”

Tree-hat scowled at him. “I didn’t do-” A howl cut him off, something outraged and furious and previously human, coming from every direction and sending shivers through the both of them. 

“Yeah, I’m sure you did nothing at all.” Norman wiggled under him pointedly. “Off. Now. Please?”

“ _Ah!”_ The guy practically leapt off of him. “Sorry, sorry. I didn’t- I mean. Sorry.”

“Not me you should be apologizing to,” Norman said.

Wood creaked and cracked. The entire house shook as if it were tilting. Norman and Tree-hat guy stumbled, touching the wall the steady themselves- pulling away when their fingers came back slick with ectoplasm, toxic-green and viscous like honey. Tree-hat guy took a sampling of the ambient noises on a digital recorder and played them back- not like Norman needed it.

_**thishouseisminethishouseisminethishouseisminethishouseismine thishouseisminethishouseisminethishouseismine** _

Norman’s breath came out like wisps in the sudden chill. “Okay,” he wiped the ectoplasm on his jeans. “Maybe a five.”

“What?” Tree-hat guy asked.

“Nothing,” Norman told him. “Uh…excuse me?” He called out to the house. “My name is Norman, and we are very sorry about intruding into your space. I’m here to pull this guy out, and he’s here because he’s stupid.”

“Hey!”

“Yes, he is very stupid for coming in and trying to take photographs of you without your permission and he is very, very sorry that. _Aren’t you_?”

“Oh…uh…yeah…” he said unconvincingly, like he was trying to placate a dog. “I am like…really sorry about that. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Good enough,” Norman sighed. The walls bowed like a wave were rippling underneath. The cold air was heavy with a numbing, stifling bitterness that made Norman want to crawl into his bed, lock his door, and shut the whole world out.

_**thishouseisminethishouseisMINE** _

“Could you please stop that?” He tried. “If you just calm down a bit, I’m sure we can talk this over and-”

A boom just down the hall interrupted him. Hat-guy shined his light and saw a second hole punch into the floorboards. Then another, further up, as if stomping footfalls were slowly approaching. Scraping lines like fingernails dragged along with walls. 

Norman scowled. “I said,” He could smell ozone. A pop of static crackled between his fingers. “That’s **_enough_**.”

The house shook again, but not with increasing tremors- more like something being wrestled into stillness. In the flashlight’s beam, swirling dust almost seemed to glow and clump together, slowly coalescing into a shape. 

It wasn’t much of a manifestation. Just enough detail for Norman to make out the tired, angry face of a middle-aged man with several days worth of prickly facial hair and dark bruises around his neck. 

Tree-hat guy slowly started to raise his camera. Norman nudged it back down without taking his eyes off the spirit. “Thank you,” he told it. “I’m sorry I raised my voice at you. Don’t you feel a little better?”

The spirit said nothing at them. It raised the impression of an arm, pointing down the stairs.

_justgetout_

They went out the front, this time. Norman smirked when the slamming door hit Tree-hat guy smartly on his backside.

“Ow! Hey!”

“Trust me, it could have been worse.”

The guy gaped at him, jeans, hat, and flannel coated in dust and cobwebs. Norman sighed down at his poor hoodie. They probably both looked like they’d been rolling around in a dustbin. 

“How did you- how did you _do_ that?” He marveled at Norman.

“It helps to talk to them like they’re people,” Norman said, with a hint of disapproval. Something didn’t quite feel right. He tapped his pockets- okay there were his keys and the lucky- oh dammit, not again. “Hold that thought.” Norman knocked politely and stuck his head into the halfway open door. “Excuse me? I think I dropped my-”

His phone hurled at him from the darkness. Norman caught it. “Thank you!” He closed the door, and examined it for damage. Good thing he sprung for a sturdy case. The screen came on okay, so he typed up a quick test/check-in text to Neil.

‘Got the guy out of house without dying. Call you tonite.’ Aaaand send.

Norman looked. The guy was still just…staring at him. “…what?”

“You just- that was…”

“Weird?”

_“Amazing_!” He exploded gleefully. “You’re new around here, right? Where are you from? How long have you been able into interact with spirits?”

“Oh. I-I don’t know,” Norman shyly ruffled dust out of his hair. “I’ve always been able to see them. For as long as I was old enough to figure out they were all dead people, I guess? It’s not that big of a deal.”

“Tell that to the Level-4 you just kept from going full _Poltergeist_ on me. I guess I owe you one,” He held out his hand. “I’m Dipper. Dipper Pines.”

“Nice to meet you, Dip-” Norman clasped his hand-

_the sky cracking open like a split skull bleeding fire and insanity and it just kept laughing and laughing It was FREE AT LAST a billion years of decay clawing at prison walls while stars spun and planets cooled an obsidian pyramid reaching up with a dozen burning hands TODAY’S THE BIG DAY_

_a hand with six fingers_

_an eye at the center of the wheel never blinking always seeing looking into him into everything looking back at what cannot be unseen_

_a glowing sigil like a brand_

_Dipper young small screaming as it sizzles_

Norman let go of Dipper’s hand and stumbled backwards, his whole body trembling.

“Whoa, hey. Are you okay?”

_It just kept laughing and laughingandlaughingand-_

“Norman?”

Norman clutched his chest like he could hold his panicking heart still. He looked up at Dipper, and didn’t know how he knew about the scar under his flannel shirt, at exactly the same spot on his chest.

‘I heard he’s hiding a tattoo,’ one of the boys said in the locker room. Norman had barely paid it any mind.

“I-I think we have a lot to talk about,” Norman said shakily.

Dipper furrowed his brow. “Yeah. Okay.” He shoved in his hands in his pockets. “My place, or yours?”

**Author's Note:**

> Yes I ended it with that line endings are hard and Dipper & Norman's relationship is full of accidental innuendo and one-liners that is my headcanon and I apologize for nothing. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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